Aver

This morning I did the unimaginable for the skinny, timid girl inside of me who was once afraid of her own shadow.  I spent 1-1/2 hours on stage with a microphone in front of 120 women talking about how I’ve found my voice.  The beautiful thing is I did not lose a moment of sleep agonizing over what I would say, or feel the slightest flutter of a butterfly in my stomach at any time.  I was completely in my element.  Who knew?

As a guest of the women’s group at a Fortune 100 company, I was invited to join a panel centered around a Today Show segment about the difficulty women have speaking up in the workplace. You can view the video here:  http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46495654#46495654. While the information presented supporting biological reasons for this problem is debatable, it’s a real issue. In preparing for the discussion, it was hard not to think about what finding my voice has meant for me.

I have always been shy, in fact painfully so as a child.  I couldn’t even ask for ketchup at the counter at McDonald’s. I once rode in the back of a two-door Thunderbird, my foot wedged under the seat because I was too afraid to tell the guy in front of me to move.  No lie. To this day I can’t believe I didn’t break my toe. I improved somewhat with age; however, speaking up in any arena outside my closest friends always meant pushing way outside my comfort zone.

After my first baby was born, the mother of a friend of mine spoke to me about the responsibility I now had to advocate for my child.  I’ve never forgotten what she said; or the conviction in her voice when she stated that if I didn’t speak up for him, no one else would. Like any good mother, I took her seriously.  But I probably didn’t need her advice, there is something innate to a mother’s love that causes us to find courage we didn’t think we possessed to fight for and protect our young.  When a feeling in my gut told me my baby was sick, I would muster the nerve to risk the ensuing humiliation if my trip to the pediatrician’s office turned out to be unwarranted.  Of course, my instinct was always right. 

Outside of parenting, anxiety about speaking up lingered. Phone calls to people I didn’t know; business or otherwise, always fell to the bottom of my list of tasks.  I would have to psych myself up to dial, and this was only after I had anticipated every question I could possibly be asked or rehearsed in my head at least 100 times the request I was going to make. Deep down I knew if I ever wanted my career to go anywhere I was going to need to get over myself and pick up the phone.

I’m not sure exactly when the tide shifted. It was slow moving.  I became adept at running my project meetings.  And, yes, making phone calls.  But I was still occasionally burned by the old adage “silence means consent” when a decision I hadn’t weighed in on didn’t go my way.  And finding the courage to speak up about money was the absolute last hurdle I cleared.

Likely some combination of landing a job I absolutely loved, having a few years of work experience under my belt and lots of practice speaking up finally pushed me over the top.  Having more confidence is at the heart of it all.

I’m pretty certain I can attribute many of my failures and disappointments in life to silence.  People are not mind readers.  In this life we truly do need to ask for what we want.

Finding my voice has meant a whole new, happier life for me.  I’m able to set my own boundaries in terms of time I give to others, which nets more time for me.  I’ve made things far more personal at work and have seen the benefits that making connections bring.  I am a legitimate networker now, a necessary evil I always met with dread.  I have made more friends in the past 5 years than I probably made in the 15 prior to that. 

Speaking up doesn’t guarantee I get what I want, but more times than not I do.  And if I’m not fully satisfied, I can usually at least negotiate to a reasonable compromise.

Now I’m described by others as someone who has an opinion about everything.  People who have spent time in meetings with me expect that I will have something to say.  There are those who are surprised that I would consider myself an introvert.  Who knew!